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Sanders proposes free college tuition

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington on Monday, May 18, the day before he planned to introduce legislation to provide free tuition at public colleges and universities.(Photo: APRIL BURBANK/FREE PRESS)Buy Photo

Sen. Bernie Sanders says he's about to introduce a bill that would provide free tuition at public colleges and universities by using Wall Street stock transfer fees.

The independent senator from Vermont and aspiring Democratic presidential candidate said Monday that unaffordable college education and high student debt hinders the United States economy.

"What we're going to be introducing tomorrow is legislation which says two things, that tuition in public colleges and universities will be free, and that we're going to substantially lower interest rates on student debt," said Sanders, I-Vt., following an unrelated event at the University of Vermont Medical Center.

Tuition-free public higher education would cost about $70 billion per year, Sanders said.

"The program that we're offering will be a grant program by which the federal government puts in $2 and the states put in $1," Sanders said. "Now, $70 billion is a lot of money, but in a nation in which we lose $100 billion every year because corporations stash their money in tax havens around the world, that's one way you can approach it.

"What we are going to be dealing with tomorrow is a transaction fee on large stock transfers," Sanders continued. "So we're going to ask Wall Street, whose greed and recklessness drove us into the recession that we're climbing out of right now, to start helping us fund college education."

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee responded to the potential cost of the proposal.

"We need to work to make college more affordable," said Republican spokesman Raffi Williams, "but if Clinton and Sanders were truly interested in helping students achieve the American Dream, they would fight to reduce our $18 trillion national debt instead of adding to it."

Sanders expects to file the bill Tuesday with more details on the plan.

Contact April Burbank at (802) 660-1863 or aburbank@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AprilBurbank